JRCharney.tumblr.com

By the way, in case you are wondering how does Donald Trump fund his campaign?  It’s not his borrowed wealth or business ventures, but the fact that like Bernie Sanders, Trump doesn’t set a minimum on political donations and in fact he most of his political donors are tiered, but low.  Where as the other candidates in his party donate millions at a time, the most a big donor has chipped in was $50,000 according to OpenSecrets.org.

Of course, the reason why we have him winning every delegate and a majority of the states so far is that he has a cult of personality thanks to his TV show and other media ventures over the decades.  Some people just haven’t woken up out of their 1980s coma which as an 80s child that time period was NOTHING like the glitzy Tumblr memes and GIFs.  In fact it down right sucked.  We had a recession. The Cold War was at it’s most volatile.  Ronald Reagan was NOT a good president.  If you dig around in your history a bit, you’ll find the same people who were working as pages for Nixon, had worked in Cowboy Ronnie’s Cabinet, and George Bush Sr. Cabinet, and were in Dubya’s Cabinet.

SO WAKE UP, AMERICA!

The 1980s wasn’t at all like The Goonies. It was more Wall Street, They Live, Wargames. and almost The Day After.  Also a lot of David Cronenberg.

Anyway, back to Trump.

This Election is Fixed! (If you want it to be.)

If you’ve ever seen that Rage Against the Machine music video for “Testify”, the primary sticking points are this:

Bush and Gore were of the the same ilk. (”The two headed monster.”)

Politics isn’t supposted to be entertaining, it’s supposed to be a civic duty we should participate in.

The fact that a lot of people won’t vote because of a lack of choice. (This is why primaries and caucuses are so important so that we don’t feel like that.)

And of course, Ralph Nader moderinzing a phrase by the Greek philosopher Pericles.

Sixteen years after that music video aired on eMpTyV, and it still holds true.

So when a photos of Hillary Clinton at a wedding for Donald Trump are everywhere online, doesn’t it make you want to reach out to Zach de la Rocha and remake that video with emphasis on this?

Sexism against Women

There’s a joke by comedian Jeff Foxworthy from back in the 1990s that goes “Of course I love cats. I’ve got one on each end of the fireplace.”

For Donald Trump, his stance on women has been a lot like that quip only not at all jovial.

We’ve seen what a s***storm that can be created on Tumblr or other social media networks sexism has created, right down to the accusation that you can’t make jokes about women (even if they are good light-hearted ones that don’t involve hair color, intelligence, or allure) without being struck down as being “Politically Correct”.  If your definition of P.C. is that strict, that easy to offend, either you lack the social skills to comprehend that no every person is good and you can’t change them and will not bend to your “center-of-the-universe” standards  or you have never once witnessed any of the offensive, outright vulgar things that Donald Trump and his associates have committed.  Time to break out the bulleted lists!

Megyn Kelly was only the tip of the iceberg. Aside from offending Fixed Noise’s lead “Stepford Wife” (which for some reason every female new anchor on that network is always white, blond, tall, and leggy with a couple of exceptions) There was also Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington, former Playboy Playmate Brande Roderick, and of course Rosie O’Donnell. (Fortune, August 9, 2015)

Criticized a lawyer for taking a medical break to breast feed her newborn. (New York Times, July 28, 2015)

Supporter of Income Inequality (just like his daddy)

Ask anyone old enough living in New York old enough to remember who Fred Trump was.

That guy who gave his son a million dollar loan. (The Washington Post, March 3, 2016) 

Or the racist slumlord mused by Woody Guthrie. (Consequence of Sound, January 21, 2016)

One thing is for certain, the apple did not fall far from the tree. (New York Times, March 9, 1985)

Racism against Hispanics

By now, most of us have heard this crap about how “I’m going to build a wall to keep the Mexicans out and make Mexico pay for it.”

Well, when two previous Mexican presidents, both of whom are part of Mexico’s conservative Partido Acción Nacional on TV, and in fluent English say things like “I will not pay for not f***ing wall!” (Vincente Fox on the Fusion TV network, Feburary 25, 2016) and “[The] Mexican people, we are not going to pay a single cent for such a stupid wall!” (Felipe Calderón on CNBC, Feburary 8, 2016), what does that say about Mexico’s policy about building a 30 foot high wall between the US when Mexicans are quite resourceful and won’t take any crap from a 69 year old orange baby with a bad comb over?

Hispanic America hasn’t taken The Donald’s behavior quite lightly as over the past few months, the organization of Latin Americans defying what many have called “El Pendejo” have been like that of Project Mayhem of Fight Club.

Video games like Derrota a Trump (”Defeat Trump”) and my personal favorite Trumpealo have been popping up in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Don’t be surprised at your next quinceañera or at next month’s Cinco De Mayo party to see someone bring a Donald Trump piñata to take a few whacks at.

Then there are the more effective stands like how workers at Trump’s Las Vegas Hotel unionized yesterday (The Guardian, April 4, 2016).

Even a Mexican construction worker, walked up 40 flights of stars at the Trump Tower in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to defiantely hang an Mexican flag on the 69th floor to protest Trump’s behavor. (New York Daily News, April 5, 2016)

So I think it’s pretty clear you probably shouldn’t show up at a Mexican restaurant in a “Make America Great Again” hat unless you want something extra in your guacamole.

Racism against Black and African Americans

Then there is the next group of Americans that the Donald doesn’t care about: Blacks.  If inheriting your daddy’s slum empire isn’t enough to deter your black friends not to vote for someone not named Ben Carson, maybe his supporters can do it for you.

At just about every Trump event where there there has been violence, it usually started off with Trump, it usually starts out with some peaceful protester calling attention the racist crap he’s said about black people (Gawker, July 24, 2015) , cooperatively being escorted out of the venue that the ruckus took place, but getting assaulted on the way out by some old white yahoo on the way out (The Washington Post, March 11, 2016).

It really didn’t help the Donald’s general appeal when hate groups started endorsing (CNN, February 5, 2016)  him even as he tried to distance himself from their support.

Then came March 11, 2016, when riots broke out at events in St. Louis and Chicago (CNN).  Other events were cancelled that weekend in Ohio.

The level of hate that was being generated started generating memes about the concentration of rage could be made into a viscous slime.  Then there was this picture.

Somebody is missing his kitten.

Trump the Antisemtic Schmuck

We’ve already seen how Trump has derided women, belittled Hispanics, and incited violence against Blacks, but what group won’t Trump go after?  Jews, but for all those just as racist Peter Griffin from Family Guy reasons.

For a guy who just like Jewish people for “being good with money”, the Jewish people aren’t returning the love. (Salon, December 5, 2015)  And to Trump, that’s all he sees in Jewish people; Their money. (Haaretz, December 3, 2015).

It’s like he learned all his geography and understanding of people from the “The United States of America, According to my Racist Aunt” meme.

But much like Melvin Udall from the 1997 Jack Nicholson movie As Good As It Gets, even Trump can’t be nice to the group of people most loyal to him, especially when he thinks their only existence is to become accountants, lawyers, and whatever other stereotype he thinks Jewish people are good for. 

Didn’t someone tell Donald that Bernie Madoff is a Jew and was an accountant?  The guy who me would most likely stick up for who is the Jesus Christ of the uber-rich (in that no other person of his lot in life has ever been put into a Federal Penitentiary), and Donald Trump hasn’t though about who to presidential pardon first?  Donald Trump WOULD pardon Bernie Madoff, never mind all those other folks who trusted him with his money who are part of the receiving end of local synagogue's food pantry.  If only Madoff had handled Trump’s money, this would be a race against Ted Cruz and John Kasich, and the GOP wouldn’t be tearing their hair out.

But I’m sure someone like Sarah Silverman will try to point that out.  Oh wait, she did...but in her quirky way of doing so: Impersonating Hitler.

Islamophobia and Racism against Asians and Middle-Easterners

Much like how “your racist aunt” gets her politics from Fox News and Facebook memes that are never fact checked on Snopes or PolitiFact or OpenSecrets.org first, her attitude toward the anyone from the East is probably based on Mickey Rooney’s performance in Breakfast at Tiffany’s or watching 9/11 specials on the National Geographic Channel or YouTube videos with Alex Jones unaware of what a quack he is. 

That’s probably nothing compared to the awful crap that the folks practicing Islam have had to put up with since the Donald started running.  In March, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) rated having Donald Trump as president as much of a threat as a jihadist attack (Washington Times, March 17, 2016).

But that hasn’t stopped Trump’s inbred supporters from committing hate crimes against Muslims (Daily Mail, March 18, 2016) and threatening to kill them (The Independent, March 28, 2016), 

And who else aside from Ted Cruz does attacks like the ones in Paris, San Bernardino, and Brussell help with their Anti-Islam Crusade than Donald Trump?  According to Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com, it is Donald Trump. (FiveThrityEight, March 22, 2016).

Clueless about Foreign Policy

If two Mexican Presidents and a Petition to ban him from the United Kingdom that went to the House of Commons (The Guardian, January 18, 2016) weren’t motivation to keep his fingers away from any red buttons that start World War III, there’s the need to keep his behavior with other leaders has been more saberrattling than diplomatic.

Under Obama, we had done well to break bread with our enemies and to reconciles for some of our transgressions.

Trump’s approach has been that of the idiot tourist.  Again “racist aunt” strikes again, only on a global scale.

His only concern is how “China is stealing our trade industry”, never mind the factories with the GM logo (Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2016) or the Boeing logo (Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2015)  or the Apple Logo (The Guardian, December 19, 2014)  that weren’t put there as knockoffs, but as legitimate trade moves by those specific companies.  And despite the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which only benefits those same companies that moved their workforce to China even though China is not part of the TPP agreement but PANAMA is as part of a Free Trade Agreement signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (International Business Times, April 4, 2016) which only benefits people like Donald Trump looking to offshore some capital beyond the reach of the US Government.

However, the initial Panama Papers will not release any American names on the list.  Needless to say, they’ll both be there.  There’s a special place in hell for this kind of greed...and this blog post once it is leaked.

Trump wants to “Make American Great Again”, but he doesn’t see that it’s wealthy American corporations leaving America who can afford to pay taxes, won’t pay them, and are the real welfare queens in this country.  The problem with making “America” great again is that most of those businesses aren’t talking about the United States.

We should really change our country’s name to make sure people are specific.  I’m sure some Native Americans can come up with a few good names to call this place.  So far I’ve found one response on Yahoo! Answers where a member of the Mohawk Nation claims this continent was once called “Anowarkowa” which means “Turtle Island” in Mohawk.  T

Homophobic attitude toward the LGBT folks

And what group known for it’s scandals like the Larry Page incident is still not willing to acknowledge this part of the American culture, which until a few decades ago had been living in the shadows: Why it is the GOP.

Even the Log Cabin Republicans (LCRs) are having a hard time trying to pick between Trump and Cruz.  It’s either between the Bully behavior of Donald Trump or the Fire-and-Brimstone crap that Ted Cruz constantly spouts.

In a capitalist society were straight men like myself don’t mind at all doing business with LGBT folks so as long as their money is green and their generally nice in return, a lot of states have sought to making new “Jim Crow” laws against homosexuals.  Yeah...ask the Department of Defense how well that worked out with “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”.  They probably prevented the next Alan Turing from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan earlier.  Now we’re stuck with ISIS.

The fact that we are stull fighting over Civil Rights stuff 50+ years after the Civil Rights Movement and now having to put up with yet more people trying to find more poeple to discriminate against is getting old and has no place in the 21st Century where instead of flying cars and cyborgs eveywhere, we have race riots, Gay Jim Crow Laws and Donald Trump running for president.

This is not the world I wanted to grow up in.  Heck, I’m glad I haven’t started a family yet, I wouldn’t want them to live in this bulls*** either!

Because you know who will be the next group of people the Donald Trump crowd will go after,

Ablism against the Physically, Mentally, and Intellectually Disabled

I saved this section for last as this one is the most personal.

Having family members with intellectual disabilities, and having some what of a slight mix between mental and intellectual myself, it is really difficult to explain what you are going through if at the same time you are quite intelligent and aware of the world going on around you while at the same time have some issues with social skills.

I graduated college and got my degree, but my disability has limited where I can find work.  I’m able to do lots of things and could work at many places that are of interest to me if given the opportunity and if the employer turns a blind eye those gaps in my employment history mainly as a result of graduating during the Great Recession.  And I look forward to writing more about technology than politics again on this Tumblr in the near future especially since I’ve been working like crazy (though without monetary payment) writing about how to set up my Hacktop and to do things with Raspberry Pi.

But none of that stuff pays.  And even though I have managed to procure part-time employment as an office assistant, the computer part of the job is a minor skill compared to all the other things I must do.

And sadly, there are plenty of people who are more than capable of doing jobs that require computer skills but because of their disabilities, they are given other jobs like custodians, or some other job that requires cleaning.  It’s rare to find a job that still requires mail room or actual office work like filing.

Yet, when I look at my own problem and compare them to say Donald Trump, I wonder why anyone would even give him any authority especially when he does this.

Considering that the March of Dimes was founded by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and George H.W. Bush authorized the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, is this the man any disabled person would want to see as the next president of the United States?

Sadly, the same laws that allow me access to do things like vote also allow other people who never even passed a civics or history class to vote as creating a test to see who is eligible to vote is considered discrimination thanks to years of people misusing their authority for things like Jim Crow laws.  There are plenty of people who are of able body and for some reason by the standards of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) of sound of mind but are out right lunatics.  Most of whom have never seen a Psychatrist, Psychologist, or Neurologist but really should.

However in the United States, some people choose instead of seeking Dr. Freud to seek Mr. Smith and Mr. Weston.  Maybe it’s because seeing any kind of a specialist will cost too damn much even with programs like Obamacare, but most of the time it is willful ignorance.

Human beings are by their nature lazy.  Unless it is something they have an interest in that others may consider an obsession or compulsive but later as it turns out all their small efforts paid off for somethings, they will choose to have someone else present something for them.

For news and information, we have had the town cryer for centuries, then everyone turned to that one lady in town spreading rumors.  Then news print came along, it seemed reliable until gossip became more lucrative than information.  Radio was a great way to stay in the know until every AM and FM station started switching formats to conservative talk radio.  TV news with the three local networks ABC, CBS, and NBC became this Cable News fiasco of CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, but mostly BS.

Now the Internet, a place where news can happen in real time with any blog, post, or tweet is the next disinformer.  We have an election for the President of the United States when under 2.3 Terrabytes of digital data every other country seems to have leaders listed as part of some Panamanian banking scheme, but for some reason names of Americans and Canadians are missing.  So we wait another day. There’s 200 names thus far, most of whom are folks who are already in prison, what good is that information.  None of them are politicians or heads of state or held any political office.  There should be a list of people, some of whom are being re-elected or elected in this list, and yet they’ve presented us with nothing?

And to top it all off, the people who pull the strings in this country who have tried tirelessly to fix the election for their candidates to win aren’t even no that list and yet will allow people with less mental capacity than a single person with a severe intellectual disability (who is not me, mind you), decide who will be the next leader of the free world?

By the way, I’m not talking about the Voters, but the DELEGATES and the people who get to be part of the Electoral College who actually make this decision.  (Your vote does matter with deciding who gets to pick who to be president, not you directly, unfortunately.)

In a few month’s well see just how many people rode the Hillary/Trump short bus to work, and who actually did “Feel the Bern”.

State of Disharmony

Finally today, I mentioned that it the GGJ even was in the highly ADA-non-compliant tall tower at the UMSL, where somewhere in Jefferson City, a bill to allow guns on college campuses is still being debated but not the introduction of safety rails in the college auditoriums.  How about a bill to drill a tunnel to get one of the access elevators to reach street level rather than this zig-zagging ramp nonsense which goes to the next building over (which is locked), so that anyone using a wheelchair, anyone with vertigo, or anyone who has their hands full of sleeping bags and computers that aren’t stored in suitcases, can quickly get down to West Drive.  Apparently, UMSL’s laying off staff again because the state does have the budget to fund the other University of Missouri Schools while trying to save face whenever a communications professor at Mizzou (in Columbia) makes an ass of herself, the first pick Mizzou QB is in a video snorting white lines, or handling any of the problems of racism that are triggered because some white asshole though drawing swastikas with his poop would prove his race superior than the one he offended despite things like this being easily prevented with a few of those $400 closed circuit TV kits you can pick up at Micro Center.

But no. Our State legislature, including douche Republican State Senator Kurt Schaefer (R-MO-19) who doesn’t even live in the St. Louis Area but thinks he’s already a shoe-in for Missouri State General this November seems to think trying to repeal the 1% earnings tax that 88% of St. Louis City voters for because the folks in St. Louis understand that 1% of their earned income is a fair price to pay to live in a great city especially when that 1% tax goes to pay for 1/3 of the city’s budget.  But let’s not pass any laws to prevent certain sports leagues from trying to build billion-dollar stadiums along a riverfront where the river is know to do this thing called “FLOODING”.

Apparently the drug problem in this country, especially among the affluent, really must be a problem.

But this year is an election year, which means this blog will have much to be politicking about.  Especially now that we are in February, and holy crap, Mardi Gras is next week!

While this blog is intended to be a tech blog, with all that has happened not just in this Country, not just in this state, not just in the County I live in, I can not help but be political in this blog, especially with the choice of candidates who are own there who campaign to the masses with such visceral outrage and appeal to people as if they are all addicted to ADHD medication.

I believe in the Democratic Party, what I don’t believe is how some people in the Democratic Party have thus far tried to eliminate better candidates by down playing their attention, trying to cut off their access to data by making party candidate hire folks whose job was to feign idiocy to sabotage campaigns in favor of wealthier candidates who can afford to buy popularity and who don’t have any problem taking a check from anyone who they think will make them likable.  This happened in 2008 when Clinton though she could do this to become the presidential nominee over Barack Obama. She failed.  She’s doing it again in 2016 with Senator Sanders now on the verge of defeating Clinton especially since the skeletons in her closet (namely in Benghazi, Libya) will be enough for Republican to elect someone even more frightening than a woman who doesn’t have an opinion over her own, who thinks she can break the glass ceiling, unaware those chauvinistic assholes in Congress have plans to make her walk off the glass cliff.

I know there are a lot of women who would really like to see a woman as president and be as excited as they were when Obama ran in 2008.  But Hillary Clinton is NOT that woman.

You know who could have been that woman this election cycle? Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).  It’s a shame Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) doesn’t seem to think that as she is backing Clinton.  And especially Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL-23, and DNC Chairperson) who tried to kill Senator Sanders Campaign.

This isn’t an Election Battle of the Sexes!  It is picking who gets to be president for the next four, possibly eight, years.  Don’t vote for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman.  If that were the case, imagine a world with Sarah Palin as president.  (See the movie Iron Sky for a pretty good description.)

Again, a woman can be president, but look at what she has done as a leader.  Did she sit on her hands while all hell broke loose getting five guys killed which led to hundreds of millions of dollars being spent to over three years just for an 11 hour hearing that she got away with because suddenly an woman who spends 23 hours per day on her Black Berry and has a private email server suddenly doesn’t know where that server is or how e-mail works?  Former Missouri Governor Matt Bluntt (R-MO, and son of scumbag Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO)) though he could get away with it with a little help of Ed Martin (yet another political scumbag who is is now chairperson of the Missouri GOP) trying to get rid of whistleblower Scott Eckerlsey.

It’s going to be real fun reading up what Wikileaks posts this year, especially since there are worse people in politics right now that current governor Jay Nixon (D-MO).

So be aware of people who claim “liberty is being degraded by tyranny” because those are the real people who are doing it.  Be away of people who have a death grip on their Bible trying to ostracize anyone who isn’t Christian or can out-Christ them, as they will gladly support doing things that certainly aren’t Christian in the name of Christ like expensive wars, baling out domestic terrorists because they think blowing up abortion clincs and killing doctors is the Lord’s work unlike some actual miracles discovered by the Catholic Church that don’t involve seeing Jesus’s face in a piece of toast and only motivate more people to become more faithless.  Be aware of people who use “9/11″, “terrorism”, “ISIS’, “Benghazi” (in terms of Obama not Clinton), “Russia” (rather than just Vladmir Putin).

Be aware of people who demand that we need to “Increasing our military budget” to keep ourselves safe from “immigrants and terrorists”, because this is total bullsh*t!  Well over 70% of the federal budget is spent in one department: The Department of Defense (DOD), and it’s not being spent on soldiers or technological advancements like the ads claim. It’s easy to steal large sum of money from the government.  Just be really rich. Just run a large multinational defense company that make weapons in countries other than our own for countries that easily could be potential belligerents or upset the the countries who are upset that we are doing that.  Be withing six degrees of separation to anyone working for Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Koch Industries, KBR, Haliburton, ExxonMobil, British Petroleum, etc. Make something that blows up or destroys something.   And be this cocky jerk before he realized he might be on the wrong side of history on a lot of things.

Be aware of people who  say they care about “Veterans”, because this is a complete LIE!  Unless their name happens to be John McCain, even if they served in the military (which thanks to a little help from wealthy family members will likely be as far from taking a bullet, seeing a friend die, or being a POW as possible) THEY LITERALLY DON NOT CARE ABOUT VETERANS! If they did, the VA budget would NOT be very, very, very, very, very tiny compared to winfall the DOD gets to spend just to literally set TRILLIONS of dollars on fire on the form of overpriced stuff that explode that effectively puts our federal budget overbudget and allows for congress to cut out government services just to allow the DOD to do it some more rather than spending it on stuff soldiers will actually use should they be deployed (because 90% of the time, they are sitting in the hot desert because someone didn’t bring a Playstation, while the other 10% is hoping their equipment wasn’t funded by the lowest bidder who took the most money from the DOD) and even less when they come back and need to recover physically or psychologically.

Be aware of anyone, of any gender, who says they care about “Women’s health” or “Women’s rights.” Even the two women who are running for president don’t care about women, at least not OTHER women who are not themselves.  In the case if Carly Fiorina, she’s only interest in seeing how much money she can take as president. She has no respect for other people or their families (see the whole incident where she kidnap children to promote her false “Planned Parenthood sells baby parts” shtick which was proven FALSE and all the anti-stem cell campaigning she’s done despite being a breast cancer survivor) while Hillary Clinton is a sycophant (google it!) who will do anything to attain power even if it means selling out to large global corporate sponsors.

Be aware of anyone who claims they care about “Science and Technology”. See the whole DOD argument, unless their is a version of the F.I.R.S.T. Robotics Competition for rich young children who like to blow up things in their back yard for sport like the little psychopaths they are.  And yes, there are parents who let their kids do it because they are just as screwed up.  (See the Bush Family for example.)

And be aware of anyone who uses the term “small businesses” which although there are small businesses that could use help finding employees, in politics “small businesses” is double speak for “RICH PEOPLE”.  If these politicians cared about actual small businesses, the actual small businesses that do need help would hire people rather than make fake help wanted ads on job websites requesting entry level positions with veteran level requirements.  Also, there wouldn’t be people over 50 doing hazardous jobs, especially after inclement weather being the single employee of branch offices.

When politicians talk of “small businesses” they talk about that wealthy 1%, who can file themselves as an LLC in the State of New Mexico.  Yes, a person can literally on paper become a business entity.  To sweeten the deal, they can then use their sudden transformation into a human business to file as a Delaware Corporation in the State of Delaware.  And the crazies part, they don’t even have to go to either of these states to do it.  Thus a D-Corp Hodings LLC, the are free of any liabilities and financial responsibilities that anyone who plays the game fairly does while abusing financial tort (i.e. bankrupcy), intellectual property laws, can buy all sorts of property and never maintain it or pay taxes on it, and do all sorts of other law breaking because they bought the ability to do so.  Don’t believe me?  Donald Trump did it four times, and if he doesn’t bet the GOP nom, he’ll likely do it a fifth time.

So be aware!  Because as Jon Stewart once said: Bullshit is everywhere.

To visualize this, imagine the available memory on your computer as a piece of paper.  You fold it in half and put the second piece on top.  You do this again and have 4 layers, then 8 layers, then 16 layers.  After a while, it becomes hard to fold that paper.  Had that paper been an unkinkable hose to pass water through it, that hose would kink up in several places.  That’s basically what happens.

The solution: Never suspend the screen.

These screenshots are from Linux Mint 17.3, but I’ll assume your Linux distro should have similar settings.

In the Power Management settings, set the “Suspend when Inactive for” to “Never” for both “On A/C power” and if you have a battery backup “On battery power”.  You should also set “Turn off the screen when inactive for” to “Never” for “On A/C power”.  Here’s what it should look like.  Set it to this then click the arrow in the upper left.

Next, in the Screensaver settings, click the Settings tab.  It probably should look something like this, but you can adjust all these settings to your liking.

Finally, pick out a screensaver on the Screensaver tab, and click the left arrow in the upper left corner.

I’d still recommend doing this if you get a graphics card.  This problem never seems to be so bad with other chip manufacturers except maybe AMD and Qualicomm.  ARM machines really didn’t do this.

So why those three brands?  As far as Microsoft is concerned, they no longer provide a product but a service.  Intel especially wants Windows 10 to be explicitly for Intel’s Skylake CPUs.  Which makes Microsoft happy.

So what does this mean for Linux users?  Nothing.  If anything, this could go to court for anticompetitive behavior.  Think of it as how Western Electric used to be the exclusive manufacturer for the Bell Telephone System even if there were a couple of other manufactures making telephones.

Pocket Mortys

The first game I want to bring up is Rick and Morty: Pocket Mortys. (Apple App Store and Google Play)

You’re 12 year old self called.  It wants you to do in-app micro-purchases for this Pokémon style game. WUBBA LUBBA DUB DUB!

While capitalism has dealt a crushing blow to this game, you still can’t help but play the free parts of this game just to hang out with your favorite octogenarian scientist and his expendable grandson, especially after the events which occurred at the end of Season 2, which this game was clearly developed to be released before “The Wedding Squancher” but the soundtrack definitely says this game was released after “Get Schwifty”. The soundtrack in this game includes 16-bit versions of “Do You Feel It?” by Chaos Chaos (which was at the end of the heartbreaking ending of “Auto Erotic Assimilation”) and “Get Schwifty” from the titulary episode.

For those of you who can’t stand to wait for Season 3 of Rick and Morty, you should definitely pick this game up, though don’t be tempted into opening your wallet for fake items for real money like The Simpsons: Tapped Out, Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff, or Clash of Clans, or whatever colorful money trap King Games promote lately.

If you are still jonesing for some R&M, consider spending that micro-transaction money at your local comic book store for the Rick and Morty Comic published by @onipress which comes out each month and has been a joy to read.

Crashlands

The other game I wanted to mention which I’ve been anticipating for almost a year now is a game developed by a local group (here in St. Louis) of three brothers who formed a company called Butterscotch Shenanigans.

From their hard work and the strife including one of the brothers fighting a bought of cancer, they have produced probably one of the most entertaining cross platform role playing game that covers many genres: Crashlands. (Apple App Store, Google Play, Steam).

I’ve yet to play the PC version. (Blame FedEx for not sending the company paychecks by 10:30 AM for the fifth week in a row.  They’re only making my boss pay me more for being there!)  However, I did still have $5 on me to get the mobile version for Android.  I just wish I had a tablet.

I’ve spent most of today playing this game, slaying the various beasts trying to kill me, going on quests, and crafting stuff from other stuff.  I’ll look forward to doing that at work when the FedEx guy has me stuck there doing more overtime because the railroad isn’t part of the modern logistic system.

Plenty of fun stuff to do. Though in order to enjoy Crashlands completely, you need to buy both the mobile version and the PC version (crossing my fingers for Linux even though Mac is probably included) to do things like see all the achievements you’ve accumulated and Cloud Storage for your world  though you’ll want to sign up at Crashlands.net to do that.  This game was released last week. Could use a few improvements, but Seth, Sam, and Adam seem to be pretty responsive about this sort of stuff, even as they are about to become videogame rockstars.

A quick shout out to FatBard for creating the soundtrack for the Coster Brothers Three.  Check it out on BandCamp.

Global Game Jam, TvWiVG, and YOU!

One more thing before I go: The Global Game Jam is this weekend. And as much as Tumblr has this record of turning things that are fun and innovative into a massive nightmare for equality, be it more practical representation of women, LGBT, or other races in gaming or more diversity in the development process among those same groups, the ability to get a game greenlit and published, especially in the Internet Age when even book publishers, record producers, movie and TV executive are watching their audiences fade away as potential clients learn more about how to get things published through smaller publishing group or studios.

If you feel jaded that there isn’t enough representation of people like yourself, you either aren’t looking hard enough or it hasn’t dawned on you that it is possible to do it yourself in the right situation.  You have folks who publish their demotape on SoundCloud or BandCamp.  You have folks who post their art on sites like DeviantArt.  Github and BitBucket for programming.  I’m trying to think of a good site to publish stories on that aren’t fanfiction that are subject to peer review.  You have Esty for selling crafts.  Several sites for fundraising. Newgrounds, which has been around for over 20 years hosting games, animation, and resources for art and music to be used in said medium with permission and collaboration.

There are reason there are movie festivals, music festivals, gaming jams like the one I’m going to, and groups that do things like writing and poetry.

Today’s post was not “gaming journalism”.  Rather it was a shout out to two things I like and accolades for some friends for their achievements that they have made.

So if you feel like you have been disenfranchised because you feel there’s nothing that you can relate to, don’t bitch about it, CREATE SOMETHING!  Create something and make that your purpose in life.

Take early folk music or first wave punk rock. These genres were created not because they wanted to revolt from what was socially acceptable but to express there problems with society creatively and to address the social issues that were rife.

The problems on Tumblr are not that nobody can relate to them (there’s plenty of that), it is that they are presented in such a way that the thing that is wrong becomes the lesser of two evils.

The only reason the videogame industry is full of young men who don’t know how to talk to other people or even “dudebros” is because those other people don’t show up to challenge the assumed stereotype many women have about the “boys” running the industry.

It’s so much easier for women who have problem with how women are portrayed in videogames to break the glass ceiling in the video game industry than it will be for Hillary Clinton to become president.  Seriously, look at all the good games women have made in the past few years compared to Hillary’s political skeletons, and I identify myself as a democrat.

So if you want to do something about the various problems in the medium, don’t use that keyboard to bemoan “Tropes vs Women in Video Games”, WRITE A VIDEO GAME!  In fact, if you are chuck full of ideas, PARTICIPATE IN A GAME JAM!

You can do it. It’s not too late to participate if one is going on in your town.  If there isn’t, start working on getting one set up for next year.

Sign up now!

Also check out this list of free tools you can use to develop your own video game.  You’ll definitely want to install them before going to GGJ.  Personally, I’d want to make a video game that runs on the Raspberry Pi for the RetroPie setup.

Even if you can’t program, a good videogame needs good story tellers and writers.  So if your the next Ann Rice, JK Rowling, Maya Angelou, or Sylvia Plath, GGJ definitely wants you!